Here we go again. One Wisconsin, as reported in Daily Kos on Monday, 20 September 2010, has authenticated a plot (no other word will do) to suppress minority and college votes in Wisconsin, which should be a red flag to every other state, especially Virginia with its substantial minorities and college voter rolls. According to the report, One Wisconsin has authenticated an audio recording from a 16 June 2010 meeting between Reince Preibus, the state director of Americans for Prosperity-Wisconsin, and the the Chair of the Wisconsin GOP, Reince Preibus, outlining the detailed plan for voter suppression:
1) The GOP will use its “Voter Vault” (state-wide voter file) to compile a list of minority and student voters in “targeted Wisconsin communities”
2) Americans for Prosperity will use this list to mail these voters a notice that they must call and confirm their registration information, “telling them if the do not call the number provided they could be removed from the voter lists”
3) The Tea Party will recruit individuals as official poll workers “in selected municipalities in order to be able to make the challenges as official poll workers”
4) On Election Day, the plan is to “‘make use’ of any postcards that are returned as undeliverable to challenge voters at the polls, utilizing law enforcement, as well as attorneys trained and provided by the Republican Party, to support their challenges.”
Based on this information, Wisconsin One has filed a request for investigation by the US Attorney’s office and the Wisconsin Attorney General’s Election Integrity Task Force and the Government Accountability Board. As Wisconsin One says,
“….The voter caging and challenge plans outlined by the Tea Party could result in an apparently illegal effort to deter qualified citizens from voting. As described, their plan would deter qualified citizens from voting in a manner that is coercive and without sufficient basis.”
The conservatives understand perfectly well that they can win an election only if there is low turnout. They also are paranoid about what they feel are all those “unproductive” low class minority folks and those naive lefty students sneaking into the polls to vote Democratic, not to mention Acorn-registered illegal aliens—- so this effort is no surprise. What is interesting is the use of Tea Party members as shock troops. Moreover, such a mailout is not cheap, so here is another case, I suspect, of corporate money pouring in to try to buy an election. Isn’t it amusing that the Republicans, who want to privatize the Post Office because it is, they say, inefficient, trust it to deliver their mailout, designed to winnow the voters?
HOW TO SHORT CIRCUIT THE REPUBLICAN VOTER SUPPRESSION: As Joan McCarter in Daily Kos suggests, Democrats should immediately work on early voting with these targeted groups of minorities and college students. Get out the early vote, the absentee vote. Are you listening, Democratic Party of Virginia?
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